Ionem: Consumed by Ambition
by Ionem
Summary: Jake Lake, driven by his desire to become legendary in name, must face his destiny and ultimately choose between good and evil.
1. Prologue

**IONEM**  
.consumed by ambition.

**Prologue**

Sundays were Jake's favorite days. Not only was there no school on weekends, but every Sunday his mother let him come to the clinic. He woke up every Sunday morning with a broad smile and ran to his mother's van in the front driveway. She'd always come out and tell him to come back in to have breakfast first. She was always smiling.

Jake ate his breakfast fast and scrambled back outside. His mother was always close behind. The van was huge, made to fit most sizes of pokémon, and on the sides and back were large logos in the shape of the silhouette of the pokémon eevee with the words "Amethyst Wild Pocket Monster Injury Clinic" underneath. Jake's mother would always open the back doors and help him in, letting him sit in the back where the injured pokémon would be carried. The musty odor of countless monsters hung stale in the back of the van, but it was a smell that Jake relished. It reminded him of his best times, at the clinic, with his mother and all the pokémon. The van rumbled down the road out of amethyst, toward the clinic on the outskirts of the small town.

They would arrive in the late morning, and his mother would put her hands under Jake's arms and help him jump out of the back of the van. Immediately a group of pokémon would rush over, led by the family pet, an eevee. The little brown fox was the first wild pokémon that the clinic had taken, and it had decided to stay. The eevee had been abandoned by an abusive trainer on the road, and Jake's mother had picked it up and nursed it back to health. The pokémon wasn't alone. A whole family had decided to stay. Eevee would run to the van followed by a vaporeon, a jolteon and a flareon, two of which were helped out of similar situations as Eevee. The third, Vaporeon, was bought from captivity, to give it a better home with pokémon of its family.

As years went on, Sundays became less special, but Jake valued them nonetheless. By the time he was twelve years old, his mother no longer needed to help him from the back of the van. Most of the times, he actually sat next to her in the front on the way to the clinic. A fifth eevee pokémon had joined the family, an espeon, donated by a wealthy breeder. Jake's mother was proud that she had five of the six eevee pokémon, and they were at the very heart of the clinic. It was clear, though, that she wished that she would obtain an umbreon as well.

On her birthday when Jake was twelve, he decided to give her one. He saved up all his money that year to buy an eevee from a breeder. He planned to raise the eevee until it evolved into an umbreon, and would present it to his mother on her birthday. He got the eevee, and raised it, after months of hard work and trying to keep it a secret from his mother, it finally evolved into an umbreon. It was late at night, and he was battling a wild tangela just outside of the town. He beat it, and the eevee evolved at last into an umbreon.

But he was never able to give it his mother.

He hid the umbreon's pokéball in his pocket on the next Sunday's trip to the clinic. It was his mother's birthday, and Jake was so excited to give her such a present that he knew she wanted. She wasn't in a good mood that morning, but he knew that his gift would cheer her up. In the car ride to the clinic, he sat next to her. She usually had the radio on, but today she didn't. Her mind was on other things.

"Three years in a row," she said. "Three years. Can you believe it?"

"What happened?" Jake asked.

"Ruth Gregors from Cinnamon Town won pokémon lover of the year by the national pokémon fan magazine. Again! Three years in a row." She sighed. "It's not that I want to win, you know? I just want to be...I don't know, recognized. I spend my whole life working at this clinic. I quit my job at Prism to work full time helping wounded pokémon. We run on donations, you know that. It's hard. I'm raising a son along with thirty pocket monsters at the clinic at any given time. I get at least four calls a day, usually a lot more." She moved to touch the radio, but stopped and pulled her hand back quickly. She glanced at Jake with tender eyes for a second before looking back to the road. "I don't do this for fame or anything", she continued. "But I don't think I've ever once ben mentioned, anywhere. I mean...Ruth Gregors's pokémon day care is terrible. Have you seen it? No, you haven't. In the magazines it looks all nice and great. That's only for the pictures. I've been there. It's trash. The monsters are kept in these tiny little cells all day long. Hah! And she gets pokélover of the year!"

She turned a corner hard, causing Jake's seatbelt to dig into his shoulder. The equipment in the back of the van rattled.

She sighed again, slowly. "I'm sorry, Jake. I am. I don't want to dump all this on you. It's just hard, that's all. It's frustrating, really."

"You want to be on the magazine really bad, don't you?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm not like that. I don't care about being famous or getting rich. But I'd just...I just really want to be...recognized. Thanked, for all that I do. In the years since the clinic was open, I've saved the lives of over three-hundred pokémon. Did you know that? And that doesn't even count all the trainers who have come in quick just to heal, and the food I leave out for wild pokémon." Her voice trailed off. She looked at her son one more time and smiled softly. "Let's turn on the radio, shall we?"

They drove in silence, listening to a dull meldoy on the radio for the last five or so minutes of their trip. As soon as they pulled into the driveway of the clinic, however, Jake's mother's cell phone went off. She pulled it off her belt urgently and flipped it open. "Rosemary Lake," she answered formally with her name. She paused, nodded. Jake noticed that her face lost some color. She thanked the person on the other end and shut her phone before turning to her son.

"Jake," she said. "I've got to go. There's a hurt pokémon. It's not far away, but it's really bad. And it's a big pokémon, too. This won't be easy. It might be dangerous, it's thrashing like mad." She forced a smile. "You wait here. Play with Eevee and the others. I should be back in a few hours, at the latest. I'll call the clinic if anything happens."

Jake opened his door and hopped out onto the gravel. He turned and looked back at his mother before he closed the door. "Mom?...happy birthday."

She smiled. Some color returned to her face. "Thanks, kiddo," she said, and blew him a kiss.

He watched as the van faded into the horizon. The eevee silhouette on the back of the van was the last he ever saw of it, or of his mother.


	2. Chapter 1

**One**

"Nobody's home," Jake shouted, watching with mild amusement as a large chunk of microwaveable burrito flew from his mouth and landed on the tan carpet. He absently gazed back to his television, where some characters were trying to show themselves through thick static. He thought that it was some sort of action movie, but in truth he had no idea what it was, and he didn't want to get up to adjust the antennae on the TV, or to change the channel.

The knock on the door repeated itself.

"I said nobody's home!" Jake shouted again, louder this time. He took another bite of his burrito, muttering to himself. He felt a soft nudge at his shin and looked down. A small brown fox rubbed itself against his leg. The eevee looked up at him with its large black eyes. They were a deep black, but not an empty, cold one. Rather, the black eyes seemed to be pools of endless emotion, rather than pits of endless, empty depth. "Fine, okay," Jake growled. "I'm coming!" he added to the persistent knocker.

He pushed himself out of the old musty chair, brushing off crumbs from his white tee-shirt. He looked at the half-burrito in his hand and shrugged, dropping it onto a pile of magazines on the small coffee table between the chair and the television. Jake headed toward the door, stumbling over a thick book on the ground. Eevee kept running through his legs, chirping almost like a bird, practically forcing Jake to dance his way to the door.

He reached it and leaned an elbow on the wall, quickly fiddling with the latch on the door with his left hand. "Okay," he said through the wood. "It's open."

The door opened slowly and Jake stepped back to let it swing. A young woman, looking to be in her late teens, peered inside. "Jake?" she asked, her voice hesitant.

"Yeah," he replied. "Jake Lake. What's up?" he asked. "Did the man send you to ask for the money in his place? Well, it's not gonna work. Just because you're a girl-"

"No," she interrupted. She shook her head and quinted her eyes. "Why's it so dark in here?" she asked. "Jake, I can hardly see your face? Why don't you turn on some lights? The only thing you have is your television." Jake watched as her eyes focused on the blurry screen. "It's not coming in, either," she said.

"Really? Great observation."

"Jake, do you recognize me?" she asked. Jake sighed and flicked the light switch, allowing himself a better view of the young woman. She stepped gingerly inside, making sure not to touch the shirt lying on the floor in front of her. Jake looked at her, seeing something in her that he recognized. She had black hair, styled short, no longer than her jawline. Her face was very clear and clean, symmetrical and slender to the point of almost being too nice. She wore no make-up, and looked good. It seemed as though make-up would have lessened her natural beauty. Her eyes, though, were a deep, dark gray that he knew he had seen before. They reminded of the eyes of his eevee; dark and deep, but not in a cold way. They were very warm...and familiar.

"Kayleigh?" he asked, skeptical.

She nodded and a smile spread across her thin lips. "You remember me."

"Of course I remember you," he said. "Come in, come in. Please ignore the mess. I...erm..." he searched his mind for some reasonable excuse. "I don't know, hoenstly. I've been having a tough week." He turned and started walking toward an even darker part of the apartment, on the opposite side. It looked to be a little kitchen.

Kayleigh stepped over a large pile of clothes. It seemed as though they were everywhere in here. She had to choose her footing as though she were walking across rocks in a stream. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

Jake shook his head. "No, it's okay, really," he said. He flipped on another light switch. The lamp in the corner of the kitchen flickered, then went out with a buzz. He winced. "Sorry," he muttered, turning back to look at her. "I was gonna fix you something to eat."

"Without even asking?" she asked, smiling. He seemed to be trying hard to make her feel welcome. "It's okay," she said warmly. "I just had dinner at a friend's house."

"Okay, good," he said. "Want to sit down?" he gestured to the two chairs in front of the still-fuzzy television. Both chairs were old and stained, and the fabric was torn in places. Not wanting to be rude, though, Kayleigh only smiled at him and sat down.

Jake slammed the top of the television with his fist and the screen went black. He sat in the other chair. "You have to hit it to turn it off," he explained. "The on/off button's busted." There was an awkward silence between the two of them, in which Kayleigh examined him. He seemed a lot different than the last time she had seen him. His face, for one, was much thinner, and his chin was covered in thick, ugly stubble. His light lilac hair was shaggier than she had ever seen it, and though he always wore it slightly long, it was messy and unkempt, rather than the straight lines she was expecting. The only thing about his appearance that seemed clean was the pair of glasses that he wore, with lenses so perfectly clear that she could easily see his faded blue eyes behind them. He looked tired, and he looked old. Had she just med him for the first time, Kayleigh would not have guess that he was only eighteen years old.

"So, what brings you here?" Jake asked. "Last I saw you, you were passing through town on your way to the Gakuen pokémon league." He smirked. "Are you a champion now?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I did it. I have my rapidash to thank for that."

"I remember when it was just a little colt," Jake said. "Your first ride on the ponyta."

Kayleigh laughed. "Yeah. I was twelve then. Wow, was it really six years ago? I guess that's right. You came to live with us that summer," she said. "Because-Oh. I'm sorry, Jake."

He shook his head. "No, it's fine. It's been six years. I'm okay." He smiled. "Yeah, six years since that summer. I'm glad I moved in with your family, though. It was nice. You were nice. I was a bit devastated when you set out on your pokémon journey, though."

"I told you to come," she said, reminding him with a smile. "But you wouldn't. You said that you wouldn't take the path of every other trainer, and that you wanted to make a name for yourself." She giggled. "You said that you would make yourself a legend. So, have you?" she asked simply.

Jake's smile faded, but he quickly replaced it with an obviously fake one. "You asked me the same question two years ago when you passed through this city and got your league badge," he said. "And the answer's the same. Still working on it, but it'll happen. Just you wait."

"Okay, okay," she said. "I will. But in the meantime, I'd like to take you out sometime this week."

Jake blinked and stared at her. "Excuse me?"

She laughed. "No, not a date or anything. Unless you want to call it that. But I'm done with my whole pokémon adventure for now. I beat the elite four and Salvatore. He was a tough fight, but he was nice. I did it, though. I've got my certificate in my car outside. I was going to bring it in, but decided not to."

"You should have, I'd like to see it," Jake said, the fake smile starting to burn his cheeks. In truth, he had no desire to see the certificate. It only would hae proved to him that she had done something- something!- while he came to waste his life in Crimson City. Working odd jobs for the past five years since he moved from Amethyst, his life hadn't been very good at all. In fact, the only thing that kept him from just giving up was his persistent desire to make a name for himself. He knew that he would, somehow. To Jake, it was more than glory or fame. He wanted to be a legend. He wanted his name to be immortal. His mother died feeling that she wasn't recognized for all that she had done. Jake wanted to repay that, to make the name of Lake a legend.

"I'll pay," Kayleigh said, shaking her old friend from his thoughts. "Don't worry about that."

"It's okay," Jake said. "I can. You don't have to pay for me."

Kayleigh's eyes wandered around the small, dirty apartment without her meaning to. She shut them fast when she realized what she was doing. Jake sighed. "Okay, you're right. I'm not doing so hot right now."

"I'm-"

"No need to apologize," Jake interrupted her. "I'm just between jobs, that's all. I was fired from Prism last week."

"I'll pay," Kayleigh said with a smile. "I'll be here...hmm...Thursday?" she asked. Jake nodded. "At eight. No, seven's better. Okay, see you then," she said. She stood up and turned to leave the apartment. Jake sat still in his chair, watching her pick her way to the door. When she stood in the light of the hall outside the apartment, she turned back to him. "You might want to shave first, too." She smiled, and shut the door.

Jake bowed his head. He felt another soft nudge on his leg and knew that it was his pokémon. He bent and picked it up, cradling the eevee in his arms as he lay back in the uncomfortable old chair. "Okay," Jake said to the brown fox. "Are you happy? I answered the damn door."

And he almost wished that he hadn't.


End file.
